You may think that making timber patterns is time consuming, difficult, and perhaps not worth the effort, you may even prefer to use foam patterns. The lost foam casting technique certainly has it’s place in the commercial and hobby foundry, but there are problems associated with lost foam. And if you are experiencing problems with lost foam, it could be due to not having a proper understanding of how traditional timber patterns are made, in fact, if you put the question to a skilled pattern maker i.e,”Should I use foam when starting out” he would most likely tell you: “That it’s probably not a good idea to use the lost foam method as a novice, that is, not until you fully understand the basics of making timber patterns, there are so many variables with the lost foam casting method which will produce a bad casting which you certainly won’t experience when using a timber pattern rammed up in green sand”.
